Joint Commission Standards Configuration and Ophthalmology

The Joint Commission Standards (formerly known as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations or JCAHO) configuration setting for all NextGen® Adaptive Content Engine templates is found on the Practice Configuration practice template. This setting should be selected by those practices that are required to adhere to The Joint Commission Standards.

When the Enable The Joint Commission Standards check box is selected, all additional fields and links related to The Joint Commission related content found within NextGen® Adaptive Content Engine is enabled. Occasionally, this may affect encounter documentation workflow. Enabling the Joint Commission requirement gives a hard stop to workflow, such that allergies must be documented/updated before anything else is done.

In Ophthalmology, one feature enabled by The Joint Commission requirement can be found on the Ophthalmology procedure templates, where three of the consent check boxes become required. An alert appears, indicating that Consent was obtained, the correct patient identified, and the correct side and site confirmed check boxes must be checked before submitting.